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A review by venanana
The Summer She Vanished by Jessica Irena Smith, Jessica Irena Smith
4.0
I found myself incredibly anger with this book at several points. (yes, I did give it 4 stars)
Trigger Warnings: Pedophilia, Implied Sexual Assault/Rape of underage girls, Victim Blaming, Murder, Physical Abuse of a Romantic Partner, Abusive Mother, Heavy Religious Themes
The Summer She Vanished is less of a whodunit but rather piecing together a 40 year old mystery and prove the known subject is guilty. Piecing together a family mystery with little to no help from her actual family, Maggie returns to America for her grandmother's funeral and learns about her secret aunt everyone tried to forget because she vanished just a few days after the murder of a Sister at her Catholic all girls High School.
We learn about the tragic events of Minna, and the abuse she and other teenaged girls at her school faced at the hands of Father Tom Brennon. It's treated as an open secret, and even the high reaches of their town tossed away evidence to protect this man. While we're led to believe these high reaches are to blame for everyone insisting nothing happened to Minna and that's why no one talks about her; people seem to want to talk the moment Maggie askes any questions. And pretty much everyone she meets tells her she looks just like her aunt... Which is super weird because why didn't she hear that a lot growing up? These same people seem to be willing to talk well enough they would have made these comments about Maggie when she was still living in town.
The twist ending is that Sister Fran is actually alive, and it's actually her twin sister Flora that was murdered by Father Brennon because he thought Flora was Fran. After Fran confronted him, told him to turn himself in or she would- he tried to meet up with her to 'talk' and by talk I mean kill. Fran adopted Flora's identity out of fear for her life, only hearing about Minna's disappearance weeks later as she went on the run. Which is so incredibly cheap, I hated it. I don't mean to not have the twin plot line, I think that was a pretty clever way to have there be this secret 3rd person involved- but I think it'd be a lot more palpable of a loss if Flora was indeed the surviving twin and hid all of these connections to protect her sister, and has been desperately trying to reach out to someone who will finally listen and solve the case.
So, my little tag line was about how this book made me angry. I think I see a lot of myself in Minna, and that just hard to listen to. There is so much victim blaming when it comes to Minna, even down to her killer's confession. Mike, her boyfriend, killed her in a fit of anger because she was going to send proof to someone that Father Brennon killed Sister Fran. Something that was morally right to do, and would have been incredibly cathartic to Minna as a victim to get justice. Mike gets angry and kills Minna because Father Brennon is his uncle, and he insists on protecting his family. In the letter he writes to Maggie, he blames it all on Minna. Minna "pushed his buttons", Minna "Liked getting reactions out of him", Minna showed him the tape, Minna stepped away- Minna was the one to show fear- Minna is the one who said he was just like his uncle, the man who raped and abused her, locked in a closet- Mike knew all of this and it was just Minna's fault.
I was furious listening to him blame Minna for her own murder. I was even more furious listening to the rest of the book with no real acknowledgment this was not her fault. It's meant to be obvious, of course it's not Minna's fault. But the first half of the book front loads you with all this blame pushed onto Minna. About how she's a liar, how she tells stories, she's a troubled teen, etc. Because it's so top heavy with people blaming Minna for her disappearance, not even bothering to look for her, there should have been some catharsis to it. Some conversation or inner monologue about how this town came down hard on a teenager that many people knew was being sexually abused instead of the pedophilia rapist in their church.
Some acknowledgment that no matter what lies Minna told, no matter how hard she pushed her boyfriend, no matter if she fought with her parents, or her siblings, even if she did try to escape and make things right; This was not her fault.
The letter at the end, Minna's letter to her sister, is heart wrenching to me as an older sister. Spending my life fearing my sisters will suffer like I did, and Minna's fear was not unfounded.
Maggie should have kicked that old bastard in his dentures.
Trigger Warnings: Pedophilia, Implied Sexual Assault/Rape of underage girls, Victim Blaming, Murder, Physical Abuse of a Romantic Partner, Abusive Mother, Heavy Religious Themes
The Summer She Vanished is less of a whodunit but rather piecing together a 40 year old mystery and prove the known subject is guilty. Piecing together a family mystery with little to no help from her actual family, Maggie returns to America for her grandmother's funeral and learns about her secret aunt everyone tried to forget because she vanished just a few days after the murder of a Sister at her Catholic all girls High School.
We learn about the tragic events of Minna, and the abuse she and other teenaged girls at her school faced at the hands of Father Tom Brennon. It's treated as an open secret, and even the high reaches of their town tossed away evidence to protect this man. While we're led to believe these high reaches are to blame for everyone insisting nothing happened to Minna and that's why no one talks about her; people seem to want to talk the moment Maggie askes any questions. And pretty much everyone she meets tells her she looks just like her aunt... Which is super weird because why didn't she hear that a lot growing up? These same people seem to be willing to talk well enough they would have made these comments about Maggie when she was still living in town.
The twist ending is that Sister Fran is actually alive, and it's actually her twin sister Flora that was murdered by Father Brennon because he thought Flora was Fran. After Fran confronted him, told him to turn himself in or she would- he tried to meet up with her to 'talk' and by talk I mean kill. Fran adopted Flora's identity out of fear for her life, only hearing about Minna's disappearance weeks later as she went on the run. Which is so incredibly cheap, I hated it. I don't mean to not have the twin plot line, I think that was a pretty clever way to have there be this secret 3rd person involved- but I think it'd be a lot more palpable of a loss if Flora was indeed the surviving twin and hid all of these connections to protect her sister, and has been desperately trying to reach out to someone who will finally listen and solve the case.
So, my little tag line was about how this book made me angry. I think I see a lot of myself in Minna, and that just hard to listen to. There is so much victim blaming when it comes to Minna, even down to her killer's confession. Mike, her boyfriend, killed her in a fit of anger because she was going to send proof to someone that Father Brennon killed Sister Fran. Something that was morally right to do, and would have been incredibly cathartic to Minna as a victim to get justice. Mike gets angry and kills Minna because Father Brennon is his uncle, and he insists on protecting his family. In the letter he writes to Maggie, he blames it all on Minna. Minna "pushed his buttons", Minna "Liked getting reactions out of him", Minna showed him the tape, Minna stepped away- Minna was the one to show fear- Minna is the one who said he was just like his uncle, the man who raped and abused her, locked in a closet- Mike knew all of this and it was just Minna's fault.
I was furious listening to him blame Minna for her own murder. I was even more furious listening to the rest of the book with no real acknowledgment this was not her fault. It's meant to be obvious, of course it's not Minna's fault. But the first half of the book front loads you with all this blame pushed onto Minna. About how she's a liar, how she tells stories, she's a troubled teen, etc. Because it's so top heavy with people blaming Minna for her disappearance, not even bothering to look for her, there should have been some catharsis to it. Some conversation or inner monologue about how this town came down hard on a teenager that many people knew was being sexually abused instead of the pedophilia rapist in their church.
Some acknowledgment that no matter what lies Minna told, no matter how hard she pushed her boyfriend, no matter if she fought with her parents, or her siblings, even if she did try to escape and make things right; This was not her fault.
The letter at the end, Minna's letter to her sister, is heart wrenching to me as an older sister. Spending my life fearing my sisters will suffer like I did, and Minna's fear was not unfounded.
Maggie should have kicked that old bastard in his dentures.